


The Waltons

by Bellovesus



Category: The Gifted (TV 2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 21:08:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17926379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellovesus/pseuds/Bellovesus
Summary: Several members of the Mutant Underground have a quiet night indoors. Post Season 2.





	The Waltons

The surviving remnants of the Mutant Underground were staying at an abandoned warehouse in Pennsylvania. They were staying there for several days until new accommodations could be found in Philadelphia for the group, so John Proudstar, Reed and Caitlin Strucker went to the city ahead of the main group.

Inside of what used to be the cafeteria section of the warehouse, Marcos and Lorna were curled up on the couch together, with Lauren on the opposite side, leaning her face sideways on a pillow and about to fall asleep. Andy was slumped in a single chair, with a book in hand. The boy was half-reading the book, half-watching the TV. The mutants were watching an episode of the Waltons. It was Lorna's choice to see it, considering her magnetic abilities.

The green-haired woman glanced around Marcos to see the book Andy was holding. "What are you reading."

"Catcher in the Rye," replied Andy.

"Any good?"

"Yeah, but I've read it before. I borrowed it from the school library once."

"Is it better than this?" Marcos asked, gesturing to The Waltons on the TV.

"It's...um...a bit spicy," Andy said vaguely. 

Marcos glanced at Andy. "I never pegged you for a bookworm."

"He's got some hidden depths," smiled Lorna.

Lauren yawned and stirred awake. "What time is it?"

Marcos glanced at his phone. "It's just after seven."

The blonde mutant girl switched her eyes to the screen. "Is this still on?"

Lorna frowned. "It's the same episode."

"Oh..." Lauren replied softly. 

Andy marked a page in his book before getting up from his seat. "Coffee?" The boy asked out loud.

"Yes!" Marcos, Lorna and Lauren replied in unison. And went to the kitchen and found some cup in one of the overhead cupboards. He returned to the lounge several minutes later with four cups of coffee.

Lauren eyed the fourth cup in her brother's hand. "D'you really need that?"

Andy shrugged. "Yeah." He lay back on the sofa-chair.

"Are you pulling an all-nighter?" Lauren pressed her younger brother in a mild sounding tone. Marcos and Lorna looked at each of the siblings in turn.

"No," Andy sighed, recognising that Lauren had an issue with him drinking coffee. "Can we not, please?!"

Lauren sipped her coffee. "There's bottled water in the van, you know."

"Okay, thanks Mom!" Andy replied sarcastically. "And what time do you think I should go to bed?"

"Can you two pipe down?" Lorna demanded of the teens. "I'm trying to watch this."

Everyone sat in silence for a while.

Marcos leaned his face closer to to Lorna. "Is this something like what you want in a family?" He half-whispered.

Lorna glanced between her lover and the TV. "Maybe not in a shack like that," she whispered back. She then looked furtively between Lauren and Andy. "Or have a bunch of bickering kids for that matter," Lorna told Marcos with a half-smile. "Not saying no either, but Dawn was...." she paused, "the pregnancy had its risks. I might have to think on it."

"I'm just looking forward to meeting our one and only kid," Marcos softly whispered back.

Lorna smiled. She looked between Lauren and Andy again. "Well," she leaned her mouth closer to Marcos' ear, "like I said, never say never."

Marcos looked in her eyes and grinned back. "Should we...?"

Lorna stood up and led Marcos by the hand out of the cafeteria to get some privacy. The siblings eyed the departure of the two twenty-somethings. 

"Are you still watching this?" Lauren asked her brother without her earlier rancour."

Sure," Andy replied. They continued watching the TV in silence for several moments. 

It was getting dark outside. Andy got out of his seat to light some candles about the cafeteria. Lauren got up to light a few herself. She then jumped into Andy's chair while he went to the kitchen to get a refill. When he came back to the lounge, Andy sighed at the sight of his older sister hogging the seat. With a playful smile on her lips, Lauren eyed the boy from across the room. Andy shrugged then went to his seat.

Lauren cocked an eyebrow. "Andy, what are y.." Andy sat on top of Lauren, who then started kicking her feet forward and shoved her hands into her brother's back. Smiling, Andy relented, and slid to the right of Lauren, settling beside her. 

Lauren just laughed. She glanced at the cup in Andy's hand. "Have you acquired a taste for that or something?"

"Maybe," Andy replied laconically.

His sister shook her head. "You're not even sixteen yet, and you're already picking up vices."

"Coffee's a vice?" Andy asked sceptically. 

"Well, it's addictive," Lauren clarified.

"So that's why you're drinking it too?" Andy a challenged his sister.

Lauren sighed at his obstinacy. "Don't tell me you're only copying me by example."

"As if," Andy scoffed at the suggestion. He paused for a second before sighing "I keep having those dreams again.."

"What, between us...?" Lauren recalled no joint dreams this past week or so. 

"No!" Andy interrupted his sister. "I mean....Reeva, the Frosts and everything. I'm just trying to hold it off."

Lauren sympathised somewhat. She herself had done the same thing a while back when Andy was still with the Inner Circle. The experience had pushed Lauren to her wit's end, compelling her into almost joining the Inner Circle herself before her father Reed and John tracked the girl down.

Lauren lifted her arm around Andy's shoulders and snatched away his coffee from him with her other hand. She placed the cup on the table before laying back in the chair. "You don't need me to tell you that dreams are just dreams, right?"

"Of course not," Andy replied tiredly. "I'm still reliving that shit every night. It's just consistently occurring and I don't know how to make it stop."

Lauren chewed her lower lip. "You know, we could just...you know, have OUR dreams together. You and me!"

Andy glanced sideways at his sister. "You wouldn't mind that?"

"No," smiled Lauren. "Don't mind at all."

Smiling back, Andy lay his bleach-blond head next to Lauren who lovingly reciprocated. She laid a hand on her brother's head. Gazing at the Walton's on the TV, she turned her face back to Andy. "Hey! After everything we've been through, we're still like those guys."

Andy blinked at that. "You think?! Like, John-Boy's going to Fenris the shit out of that hovel they live in?"

Lauren chuckled. "I think you're more like John-Boy than you think, Andy." She told him in a slightly more serious tone. "You don't fool anyone with that angry hooligan act you have going on, least of all me."

"Right, sure, I'm John-Boy!" Andy declared mockingly. "Dungarees, pontificating morally, sorting out everyone's quandaries. That's me!"

"You'd look good in dungarees," teased Lauren.

"Oh, shut up!" Andy snorted.

Lauren grinned. "Ooh, John-Boy?!" She said in an affected Southern rural accent.

"Good night Mary Ellen!" Andy shoots back in the same accent. They both laugh.


End file.
